


his hair in the summer sun

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:12:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1697729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: <i>SteveTony Summercamp au + Both read each others diaries.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	his hair in the summer sun

The diaries start out being a stupid summer camp project- there’s a fifteen-minute period before lights out when everyone gets out their little notebook and has to write what they did that day.

Most of the campgoers don’t take them seriously, because they’re all over fifteen, goddamnit, this isn’t third grade anymore, they shouldn’t be obligated to write shit during what could be valuable gossip time with their bunkmates. 

Tony Stark, for one, doesn’t take his seriously at all.

Steve learns this after getting Dared to run into Tony’s cabin after a day where Tony was being more of an asshole than usual, and find whatever dirt he can on Tony.

Steve figures his diary was a safe place to start.

Tony’s first entry is:

**Day 1. went canoeing. hated it. i could literally buy this place if i wanted to, who needs to canoe anywhere when I could buy everyone their own private jet, i’m tempted to do it after rogers tipped my canoe over. the bastard. fuck rogers. fuck canoeing. fuck summer camp. fucking fuck.**

_Off to a good start, then,_  Steve thinks.

He remembers that first day. He remembers hitting Tony’s canoe with his paddle by accident, and Tony being in a bad place in the tide so he had went over.

He remembers almost diving in after Tony before he resurfaced, red-faced and spluttering, “You did that on PURPOSE, Rogers.”

Steve was pissed off then, it had started another screaming match to go with the one they had had on the bus on the way here, minutes after meeting each other for the first time.

Sneaking a glance over his shoulder to check if anyone’s come into the room, Steve finds it empty and goes to the next entry. There’s a stain on it, like someone put a coffee cup on it. Steve doesn’t know how Tony got coffee, only the camp leaders are allowed them. He wouldn’t put it past Tony to raid the kitchen for them, he bets Tony dragged Clint along.

**Day 2. did i mention fuck rogers. because oh my god FUCK ROGERS. over breakfast he told me it wasn’t nice to name the dog dummy. like wtf, i’m not instituting the dog, i was just calling it a dummy and it just started bouncing and freaking out and then the dumb dog wouldn’t respond to anything else. btw we found a dog and adopted it. will ask howard if i can keep it when i get back, i’m gonna smuggle him back home on the bus and idc that clint has dibs.**

Steve stifles laughter at that. Everyone has come to love the adorable if not slightly stupid dog that started wandering around the camp. He doesn’t know if Tony will get to take it home, though, since it’s kind of become the Camp Dog. Everyone’s irrationally attached to it. He’s pretty sure half the camp has secret plans to smuggle him home in their luggage.

Steve continues turning pages, remembering the things that Tony writes about- the food fight in the second week, the seaweed monster that turned out to be Thor playing a prank, the time everyone sneaked out of their cabins to sleep on the beach and got caught by one of the counselors. He gets the inside scoop on how Tony became friends with Bruce, which also involves the explosion in the kitchen that previously no-one had any culprits for. He learns Dummy’s favourite food: weetabix with ketchup, weirdly enough, and Steve silently agrees that Dummy’s a weird dog. 

He learns that Tony’s the one who fixed the boiler, the one who made a mini-plane out of broken car bits. He learns that Tony doodles something that looks like advanced maths in the margins, and sometimes uses whole pages to draw complicated diagrams that Steve only sort of gets. 

He learns that every few pages there’s something bitchy written about Steve, always under the guise of ‘goddamn rogers’ and the like. One time, there’s an entire entry about how unnecessarily righteous Steve is, and there’s another one about Steve’s hair being stupid.

He also learns why Tony broke up with Pepper, his girlfriend of a week and a half, and at this point his grin dies.

**Day 33. so pep and i broke up, she said we’d be better off as friends and also that i have an embarrassingly huge crush on rogers and APPARENTLY everyone else agrees. like everyone. even the cabins over on the other side of the trees. every single person hopefully except for rogers oh my god. jfc. jfc jfc jfc jfc. seriously this cannot be happening. i am an idiot come on stark this is pathetic**

Under that, in messier scrawl, like he’s writing after lights-out:

**rogers is steve btw. his first name. i don’t think i wrote it in here i just said rogers. yeah his name is steve. i am pathetic wow**.

Glancing over his shoulder, Steve checks the coast is clear before reading on. The next few entries are short, mostly diagrams and maths, but then there’s a long entry that goes over a page:

**Day 37. ok fine i’ll talk about it bruce said it’s good to get things out on paper and he’s really good at this kind of shit. so anyway apparently i’m the dumbass who fell for steve rogers. with the dumb hair and the eyes and stuff. i thought i hated him but apparently noooooo thats just my feelings confusing me apparently i ~like~ him. bc thats how my screwy brain works. he’s so kind like STUPIDLY KIND but also kind of an asshole like i admit i like him but he’s still a bit of an asshole like he’s got this dry kind of humour and he can get all sarcastic and yeah. he never backs down also. no matter what. like once we were going to try jumping off a high rock into the ocean and tasha dared steve to do it and none of us did it but steve went and did it and it was terrible we thought he died for thirty seconds but then he came up and grinned and yelled he wanted to do it again. crazy asshole. and he stands up for people like if anyone’s getting bullied he’ll shut that shit down. apparently the guy was really skinny as a kid. i can kind of see it. bet he never stood down then either. he hates me btw. like HATES me, like how i thought i hated him but he actually hates me like that. sometimes we get to friendly-ish teasing but that’s it. he apologized once for thinking i was a bully at the start bc he’s the kind of person who apologizes to people he doesn’t like for some reason??? and i didn’t know what the hell to say so i said ‘thanks, i guess you’re not terrible either,’ and walked off and tried to climb a tree bc thats what clint does when he wants to be alone but it didn’t work and i fell and got my knees scraped up. screw clint and his monkey limbs. how does he even do that. was he a monkey in a past life. i’ve seen the guy scale the biggest trees here it’s insane. anyway STEVE i’m supposed to be talking about him bc it’s therapeutic or some shit. idk what they think this will achieve. i just. like him a lot it’s fucking embarrassing they said it’s rly obvious and now i don’t know how to act around him. like what do i even**

After that, there’s a bunch of swear words scribbled over several lines on top of one another.

Steve feels like shit, because he had sneaked in here meaning to find something to tease Tony with, because the guy is just- so irritating, so high-and-mighty and not the bully that Steve first thought, but still a jerk. 

Right?

Steve flicks back, through the plans to build a dam with Bruce because Thor wanted to do it as a kid but never got the chance, though the fond complaints about Clint’s climbing abilities, the long entries about how great Pepper is, how he’s going to miss this place when he has to leave in a few weeks.

He remembers times when he thought,  _Tony’s not that bad_ , but then Tony had done something or said something a few days later and Steve had gone right back to the start.

He remembers all those times he’s caught Tony looking at him and automatically assumed it was because Tony thought he was weird, the times he heard Tony mutter something and assumed it was offensive. He remembers a couple of days ago, snapping at Tony for making a joking comment about Bruce, and remembers how Tony’s smile had faded quickly. “Sorry,” he had said, strangely quiet, and walked off.

"It was an inside joke," Bruce had told him later. "You didn’t have to be a dick about it."

"I thought-"

"I know," Bruce had said. "So did I. But he’s just- he’s like that, he doesn’t mean it like you think he does."

Steve closes the diary and places it back in the shelf where he found it. When he gets back to his cabin, he tells the others he didn’t find anything and heads straight to his bag where he keeps his own diary.

-

Tony is in the middle of yawning when Steve Rogers barges into his cabin, half-runs up to him, doesn’t say anything to Tony’s confused greeting, shoves a diary into his hands, blurts, “Please read all of it,” and then runs out the door.

Tony is left there standing a diary, and he looks beside him to where Dummy is cocking his head.

"I know," Tony tells him. "What the hell."

He scratches behind Dummy’s ears as he opens it, and frowns. Yep, this is definitely Steve’s diary, it’s his handwriting and it’s how he would word things. Tony snickers as he reads about how Steve’s first day was good, but some jerk yelled at him for something that he did on accident.

_I guess he was telling the truth_ , Tony thinks, remembering their second screaming match as Tony scrabbled to get back into his canoe.

Tony isn’t mentioned much, just an offhand, **today someone blew up the boiler and I’ll bet it was Tony, this sounds like something he would do and I think he had oil stains on his shirt at dinner.**

Around day 22, Steve writes at the end of an entry,  **I’ve decided Tony isn’t such a bad guy. A bit of an ass, sure, but not a bad guy.**

On day 28, Steve writes,  **yelled at Tony again today. Can’t even remember why. All our arguments blur together at this point.**

This goes on until today’s date, and Tony gets to the first sentence before his hand stills on Dummy’s head.

**Dear Tony,**

**First off: I violated your privacy and I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have done it no matter how mad I was at you today.**

**I read your diary. Again, I’m so sorry. I don’t expect your forgiveness.**

**By reading it, I found out some things, and I promise I won’t tell anyone what I read. But I want to bring up one of those things- as it turns out, you like me as more than a friend.**

**I was surprised to hear this. Until I read it, I thought you put up with me and that was that. I even thought sometimes that you were deliberately out to get me. Maybe you were, at the start.**

**When I met you, I thought you were a bully. I told you this, and I apologized for thinking it. I stick to that belief: you aren’t a bully, no matter how much you pretend to be one. You’re a good guy, you’re kind though you cover it up a lot. You’re smart, you’re stubborn, you’re loud, you’re reckless, and quite frankly, you’re gorgeous.**

**But I think what made me realize I like you more than a friend was that day you made Dummy a kennel.**

**I realized I liked you that day, and I immediately thought nothing could happen, not only because everyone said you liked Pepper, but because people like you don’t like people like me. You’re extraordinary where I’m plain old ordinary. You make me laugh, you make me mad, you make me crazy, Tony. I think we yelled at each other so much because we both thought it was the only way we’d get each other’s attention.**

**Anyway, I thought I’d give this to you to test the waters. And I understand how fifth-grade this is, so I’m sorry in advance:**

**DO U LIKE ME** **(Y/N)**

_**(CIRCLE ONE.)** _

"Son of a bitch," Tony croaks, his mouth twitching up into a disbelieving smile as Dummy whines and butts his head into his leg.

-

Steve gets weird looks from his bunkmates as he sits on his bed staring at the ceiling and grunting to anything he’s asked for the next forty minutes.

When there’s a knock on their door, Steve all but trips over his own feet getting to it. “I’ll get it,” he yells and nearly tackles Thor out of the way to open it before he does.

"Hey," Steve breathes, curling his toes into the carpet when he sees Tony, a shy smile on his face.

"Hey," Tony replies. "Uh, I came to give this back." He holds out Steve’s diary, and Steve says, "Could- could you give it to me outside?"

Tony looks inside where Thor, Sam and Bucky are all staring at Tony with a curious expression. “Yeah, sure.”

Steve closes the door behind them, and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Um, thanks,” he says as Tony hands his diary back. 

"Should probably flick to the back," Tony suggests, and Steve is unsure whether to squash the tiny kernel of hope in his stomach.

He flips to the most recent entry, the message to Tony, and doesn’t bother trying to tamp down his grin when he sees the ‘Y’ has been circled. “Huh.”

"Yeah," Tony says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "So."

"I’m sorry I read your diary."

Tony shrugs. “You more than made up for it.”

"I’m still sorry."

"Okay, I forgive you."

"You don’t have to."

"Yeah, but I do anyway."

"Oh. Okay." Steve closes his diary, wrapping one hand around it. "Okay."

Tony swallows. He takes a step forward. “So- if you read it, you got to that entry that said how much I thought about kissing you?”

"Uh, I stopped after the one with all the swear words on top of each other," Steve says, his chest tightening uncomfortably. "But that’s, that’s a good thing. You thinking about kissing me. I’d like to read that."

"I’ll let you read it later. It’s really sappy, it’s terrible."

"I’m gonna love it, I can tell already," Steve says, and Tony wets his lips.

"Gonna kiss you now. Just. Warning you."

"Cool," Steve squeaks, nodding, and Tony shuffles forwards and Steve tilts his head down and they’re doing the kissing thing.

They manage to do the kissing thing until a whoop from the next cabin over makes them jolt apart, and they look over to see Clint hanging out the window and grinning at them.

Steve flips him off and continues kissing Tony until a camp counseller comes to tell them off.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


End file.
